Plexus 3d layer Interaction

[Ari Grunzeweig]

Hi Dave,

That idea crossed my mind as well, but Plexus doesn’t allow to do that. Unless someone knows otherwise.

Anyone else have any other thoughts?

Thanks 🙂

Thanks,
Ari

[Paul Esteves]

From what I can understand about Plexus (I have used it quite a bit), it isn’t actually a 3d object, it just looks 3d. The object functions in 2d space as a 3d object. So, it can’t interact with other objects.

[Cassius Marques]

plexus has no camera cut out feature as most other plugins do…this is a serious limitation in my opinion. You may be able to fake that using lights with instances of the same animation to create a luma matte of front part only.

[Ari Grunzeweig]

Hi Cassius. That sounds like an interesting idea, but I can’t quite visualize how it would work. Can you explain a bit more please?

Thanks!

Thanks,
Ari

[Jason Jantzen]

Plexus will let you use lights to cast colors onto the dots and lines you choose. What Cassius is alluding to is that you could use the lights to shade the front half of the object and create a matte that way. It’s not a very good fix if you end up trying to move the camera around. In fact, if there aren’t any camera movements at all, I’d just fake the whole look to begin with.

Jason Jantzen
vimeo.com/jasonj

[Cassius Marques]

[Jason Jantzen] “It’s not a very good fix if you end up trying to move the camera around.”

I disagree. I think it works. You can set it up rather quickly, and even if you need to move the camera around you can probably link the light to the camera and figure some math (to the properties and camera distance) that would make the matte stay consistant during the movement.

[Ari Grunzeweig] “Can you explain a bit more please?”

Its pretty much what Jason said. You need 3 plexus instances, leave two above and one behind your text. set the topmost one to colorize with lights (I’m during render right now so I can’t check the proper property name). Create a light at your camera and set its radius/decay to only reach the middle of your plexus sphere. Use that as a matte for the second plexus that will be the “front half” of your sphere. (maybe you’ll need some curves adjustments and such to make it clean).

[Ari Grunzeweig]

Makes sense. Thanks guy. I’ll give it a try and report back!

Thanks,
Ari

[Jason Jantzen]

FWIW, last time I asked Satya about near and far cut off, he said he’s implementing that into the next version. But yeah, that helps none of us now, I know. Just good news 🙂

Jason Jantzen
vimeo.com/jasonj

[Cassius Marques]

indeed it is very good news…

[Jason Jantzen]

And there is always the scripted approach to Plexus. I totally forgot about creative dojo’s array connector. https://creativedojo.net/store/dojo-array-connector-script/

Jason Jantzen
vimeo.com/jasonj